Vilarejo is back! We had some infrastructure problems that delayed our new installation, but everything is ok now (hope so!). ;-)
Everyone that use this as primary hub may come back now. And if you find any problem, please contact me at webmaster@vilarejo.pro.br.
Thank you for your patience and sorry about this long delay. And welcome back home! :-)

After tossing up options in mid-2018 between WoT and WT I had opted for World of Tanks Blitz and then moved on to WoT PC. Now in April 2019 I decided to give War Thunder Ground Vehicles a go (I had a brief go in 2018 with WT Aviation already but I've been enjoying tanks at lot). One reason is WT has three modes of gameplay to migrate to from Arcade, to realistic and through to Simulator, and you can even opt to jump into a plane and finish off a tank battle that way. Unlike WoT there is no playable artillery but you can summon artillery in the game to target an area.

Another key difference is WoT has a hitpoint system of depleting points through damage whilst WT will allow a tank to take a lot of damage but its critical parts are affected and killing all the crew or exploding the ammo racks inside will kill off the tank. So sometimes you can be killed by one well-placed shot. There is certainly a shade more realism with WT.

So I'm still in Tier 1 in my second tank which is a German Pz.IV C with a battle rating of 1.3. I'm trying not to rush through the tiers in this game by buying premium vehicles (yet at least). I'll be grinding my way through the German tanks but I'm aiming to spend some time in Tiers 1 - 3 as things get a lot hotter from Tier 4 upwards so you want to proceed incrementally.

We may not even see them, but tiny particles, particulates in the PM2.5 size range, are able to travel deeply into the respiratory tract. PM2.5 infiltrates the lungs, all the way to the alveoli, where oxygen is transferred into the bloodstream. Exposure to nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter, or PM, can cause grave trouble with one’s health.

Emissions from traffic and poor choices in transit are one of the major causes of our dangerous air. Fresh air, a precious commodity, disappears as many fossil-powered cars, trucks, buses, and off-road vehicles (e.g., construction equipment, snowmobile, locomotive) emit fine particulates from their tailpipes.

A US study published online in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine signals that, as levels of ozone and fine particulate pollution (PM2.5) rise, more patients end up in the ER. The study looked at the levels of these two pollutants in 869 counties in the week prior to an ER visit for a breathing problem. The study included nearly 40 million ER visits for breathing problems from the counties, which represent 45 percent of the U.S. population.

The authors wrote that their study findings support the Environmental Protection Agency’s “determination of a likely causal relationship between PM2.5 and respiratory effects and a causal relationship between ozone and respiratory effects. Increased levels of fine particulate matter resulted in increased visits for asthma, acute respiratory infections and pneumonia.

Two years ago, Desmond Hughes heard so many of his favorite podcasters extolling AirPods, Apple’s tiny, futuristic $170 wireless headphones, that he decided they were worth the splurge. He quickly became a convert.

Hughes is still listening to podcasters talk about their AirPods, but now they’re complaining. The battery can no longer hold a charge, they say, rendering them functionally useless. Apple bloggers agree: “AirPods are starting to show their age for early adopters,” Zac Hall, an editor at 9to5Mac, wrote in a post in January, detailing how he frequently hears a low-battery warning in his AirPods now. Earlier this month, Apple Insider tested a pair of AirPods purchased in 2016 against a pair from 2018, and found that the older pair died after two hours and 16 minutes. “That’s less than half the stated battery life for a new pair,” the writer William Gallagher concluded.

Some tech companies have figured out how to make more sustainable products. The Fairphone, for example, allows consumers to easily swap out the battery and other parts. Other companies have made it easier for consumers to recycle their electronics at the end of their useful life, Rohwer said; Dell offers prepaid shipping labels and has partnered with Goodwill to create a convenient place for consumers to drop off electronics, and HP provides customers with envelopes so they can recycle their ink cartridges.

Yep that is the reality of all current batteries… just so many cycles and they start to degrade. Sometimes with a phone, you may be able to replace it but with more specialised gadgets like Airp[ods budget on just throwing them away.

The new look is starting to roll out (as well as some additional themes) and the site has a more familiar look to it now for Google+ users. Collections have also started to appear (Groups that only allow the owner to post but anyone can comment) and Categories have gone live too along with +1 on posts instead of a Like button.

Many changes are still to be rolled out and there are some glitches being attended to but it is good to see that from day one posts can be fully public (so you can reshare them to other networks and link back to them) and the owner is managing to keep up with daily feedback to everyone.

Both Huawei Cloud and Microsoft Cloud are now available in South Africa

Huawei said on Tuesday that its Cloud offering is now available in South Africa. “Like all Huawei Cloud data centres, the South African facility complies with tier 3+ standards and uses Huawei’s high-performance chips and network devices to offer a better user experience,” the Chinese electronics giant said in a statement. Huawei is leasing a data centre in Johannesburg from a partner from where it is deploying localised public cloud services based on local industry policies, customer requirements and partner conditions, it said. Huawei plans to gradually operate more data centres in Kenya, Nigeria and other countries in Africa, it said.

Microsoft has officially launched two Azure cloud data centres in South Africa, one in Cape Town and the other in Johannesburg, after the software giant missed an earlier deadline of December 2018 to take the facilities live. Lillian Barnard, newly appointed MD at Microsoft South Africa, said at a press conference in Johannesburg on Wednesday that the data centre region is live with immediate effect. “The enterprise-grade data centre regions in Cape Town and Johannesburg … will power cloud, artificial intelligence and edge computing innovations across the continent,” Barnard said.

The Saints of Silicon at the Centre for Computing History have got hold of the original build of Sinclair's ZX Spectrum - Hopes to bring silicon back to life over next few weeks

The hardware had been in the possession of Nine Tiles, a company responsible for the BASIC ROM in the ZX80 and ZX81 and called upon to provide the new BASIC for Sir Clive's new colour computer. Judging by labels on the ROM chips, the computer dates from around July 1981.

The Register had a chat with museum curator and CEO Jason Fitzpatrick, who told them the hardware had been fired up at some point in the past, and that the museum hoped to bring it back to life in the coming weeks, if the silicon cooperates.

And the value? In world where a working Apple 1 board can fetch $350,000, it's difficult to put a price on the one-off. Fitzpatrick remarked "It's in the eye of the beholder."

Yes I behold this computer with awe. The ZX81 (its predecessor) was the second computer I owned and where I really cut my teeth on programming in BASIC and hex. The ZX81's and ZX Spectrums launched many a successful computer career back then by sparking interesting in young minds.

What a fascinating read how this really high productivity always connected CEO has organised his life around the tech he uses through decades of productivity hacks. I love the fact he mostly works remotely from home and even gives his talks from there. He "runs" his meetings whilst walking on his treadmill! And yet for some things he carries a pen and paper.

If you know anything about WolframAlpha and some of the AI technology his company has been creating for the last 32 years you'll probably want to read his story. He does not just sell a product... he created those products for himself to use, and they happen to be useful for everyone else too. I wish more CEO's were so into using their own products (although I suppose the founders always are, its what happens after the business passes onto someone else).

"At an intellectual level, the key to building this infrastructure is to structure, streamline and automate everything as much as possible—while recognizing both what’s realistic with current technology, and what fits with me personally. In many ways, it’s a good, practical exercise in computational thinking, and, yes, it’s a good application of some of the tools and ideas that I’ve spent so long building. Much of it can probably be helpful to lots of other people too; some of it is pretty specific to my personality, my situation and my patterns of activity."

"I’ve had the same big wooden desk for 25 years. And needless to say, I had it constructed with some special features. One of my theories of personal organization is that any flat surface represents a potential “stagnation point” that will tend to accumulate piles of stuff—and the best way to avoid such piles is just to avoid having permanent flat surfaces. But one inevitably needs some flat surface, if only just to sign things (it’s not all digital yet), or to eat a snack. So my solution is to have pullouts. If one needs them, pull them out. But one can’t leave them pulled out, so nothing can accumulate on them:"

"These days I don’t deal with paper much. But whenever something does come across my desk, I like to file it. So behind my desk I have an array of drawers—with the little hack that there’s a slot at the top of each drawer that allows me to immediately slide things into the drawer, without opening it."

In some ways, I do similar things but at a way more superficial level... seems I have a role model now to follow here

I love that he also lists at the end of his article all the products and tech that he uses. It confirms too that that old fashioned looking phone is, in fact, an Iridium satellite phone and not a 20-year-old Nokia phone.

How Air Purifiers Became the Newest Wellness Craze - Air purifiers are being sold as health devices. But do they work?

There’s growing sentiment that air purifiers are a panacea for conditions as wide ranging as bronchitis and pet allergies to masking pipe tobacco smell in a “man cave.” On the internet, air purifiers are marketed as the new CBD oil, a proposed solution for all health ills. In Facebook mom groups and Amazon customer reviews, people share their favorite makes and models, and while some occasionally gripe about defects, the overall consensus appears to be that if you or a loved one struggle with asthma or pet allergies, air purifiers can be a game-changer.

The air purifier market is experiencing an unprecedented boom — especially abroad. In South Korea, air purifier sales have tripled since 2016, with the government recently announcing a plan to install the devices in all kindergarten and pre-K classes. In China, where severe air pollution has been linked to an estimated 1.6 million preventable deaths, as many as 7.5 million devices were sold last year, up from 3.1 million in 2013.

A report from TechSci Research projected that the industry would be worth $3.9 billion by 2023, up from $2.6 billion in 2017. Air purifiers won’t just be niche medical devices for families living in high-pollution areas, but appliances as ubiquitous as the air conditioner. Some scientists believe that air purifiers are little more than a Band-Aid concealing a much larger problem. Ultimately, they don’t address the source of air pollution.

The article does not actually give a definitive answer about whether they work or not. But what is clear is we need to be cautious about the cheaper products. The ones that do work are likely to be the much more expensive HEPA filter purifiers, and also when maintained properly. Much of what we see at bargain prices are actually gimmicks. The newer PECO technology may actually be better, but the pity is we are spending money on fixing the symptoms instead of the causes of air pollution...

When it comes to conspiracy theories - intuition and stress conspire against you

Conspiracy theories are dusted amid the violent videos, racist comments, and death threats that Facebook moderators face every day. That putrid flood of information can be traumatic, as The Verge’s Casey Newton found when he reported on the working conditions endured by moderators in Phoenix, Arizona. Some of the workers bombarded with conspiracy theories told Newton that they were starting to believe the ideas they were seeing.

What makes people start believing that the Earth is flat, or that 9/11 wasn’t a terrorist attack? And, in this case, did the stressful working conditions have anything to do with it? To answer some of those questions, The Verge turned to Mike Wood. Wood, a psychologist at the University of Winchester, studies conspiracy theories, and how they spread from the fringes to the mainstream. The Verge spoke to him about the current research into conspiracy theories, and whether there’s anything people can do to make themselves less susceptible to them.

It's often a case of a message hitting soft ground where it is easily absorbed, in other words, its something a person thinks is likely or wants to actually believe (for whatever reason) and where stressful situations were experienced (like death of a family member, divorce, major disruption to their lives ). They are less likely to strike home with someone who is already a skeptic or is broadly informed on matters.

And you will find it difficult to change someone's mind once it has taken root and is believed by many others because other research has shown that being exposed to facts doesn’t seem to change people’s minds.

Social media of course also allows conspiracy theories to spread quickly without any filter (like editors and journalists would check facts for a newspaper).

I've been hearing mention of these headphones a bit in the last week and it really seems people fall into two camps - they either love bone conduction or they hate them. I'm in the 3rd camp as I really need to try some first to know what I think.

Plusses given are:* Safety factor in that you can still hear ambient sounds around you for traffic, sirens, etc* Nothing pressing inside your ear creating a sense of discomfort* Works for people with small ear canals* For some types of hearing disorders this may work better (f you have a conductive hearing loss or unilateral hearing loss)* You can still opt to block your ears if there is any external sound you want to block* Some have space for more battery than in-ear earbuds* Can have less sound leakage than speaker type headphones* "High volume" is not going to damage the eardrum (but may still not be safe)* Can work for scuba drivers...

Minusses:* They are more noticeable than in-ear earbuds* Some say the sound is just not as good eg. stereo separation* Not ideal if you want to actually cancel ambient sounds

These Aftershockz at least are totally wireless and I also do not like have a wire hanging around the back on my neck as it tends to snag when I turn my head. I do at least prefer this more rigid headphones-like design. I see they give six hours of continuous music + calls on a single charge and two hours to charge. Something I have not seen mentioned with other brands is an "Audrey Says" voice prompt to guide users through power, pairing, playing and talking.

It certainly looks like bone conduction headphones have been advancing steadily along and improving and is something I'll add to my of different things to try out - if anything just to judge how good or bad the sound really is.

The Brio True Wireless Earbuds - These wireless earbuds last up to 50 hours and are way cheaper than AirPods

Each pair features the latest Bluetooth 5.0 technology that never lags or drops your audio — AirPods still use the 4.2 version, for reference — and offered up to 50 total hours of on-the-go listening when you use their compact, portable charging case, or 8 hours on a single charge. (Apple's version, meanwhile, only lasts about 24 hours with its charging case, and about 5 hours on a single charge.) We're not saying the Brios are perfect, but hey — they seem to come pretty close, don't they?

One other interesting point is I suspect these will also fit better in most ears than the AirPods.

"This year, I’m pretty sure I’ve found the ideal Chrome alternative in the Brave browser. If your reasons for sticking with Chrome have been (a) extensions, (b) compatibility, (c) syncing across devices, or (d, unlikely) speed, Brave checks all of those boxes. What’s more, it’s just one of a growing number of really good options that aren’t made by Google."

An interesting account to read as the author also started out with Vivaldi (the most customisable Chrome alternative with stacked tabs etc). But Brave bowser may be a bit more stable, it has a mobile app (which Vivaldi still does not have) and of course its original claim to fame which was built in privacy.

First impressions of my new TicWatch Pro smartwatch which arrived today

I've replaced my LG Watch Sport with this watch mainly because the LG uses really proprietary bands (straps) which have the antennas embedded inside. While the LG just got day's use on its battery (from 07:00 to midnight) this TicWatch should get 2 days battery in smartscreen mode, around 5 days in mixed mode (basically smart reverts to essential mode for last 3 days), or a full 30 days just in essential mode. "Time" will tell over the next week or so and I'll give an update on this. I'm also suspecting the charge time is going to be a bit longer, and of course its charging cradle does not stand upright on its own like the LG's.

The dual screens are quite a clever feature, not only for battery life, but also for bright sunlight as the essential mode screen is a basic LCD which reads fine in the sunlight.

The OS is the same as other Wear OS watches. The DPI resolution is very slightly less than the LG but not noticeable to the eye in any way. At first, I thought the TicWatch was way thicker than the LG but they are about the same - it was a trick of the light with the shaping and textures.

Yes the TicWatch has only two buttons and no scrolling crown button but I can live with that. Same GPS, Wifi, Bluetooth, and NFC but excludes the SIM for making calls. It will make and receive calls when paired with a phone though, and its fitness app will record exercises using its built-in GPS.

On exercises it not only supports Google Fit (and its own built-in fitness app called TicHealth) but will also export exercise data to Runkeeper and Strava. I should also mention that every aspect of health data sharing needs to be allowed or declines(steps, heart rate, etc) so you are in total control. Another nice touch is to opt into step count comparisons with other people where you see their step counts and distance away from you (one person is 20km away!). You can cheer them on if you wish. Maybe creepy for some but you can opt in or out of it.

StayLit Wear: Longer Backlight - app lets you control how long the Wear OS backlight timeout stays on from 1 sec to indefinitely

A useful app especially if you want to gaze longingly at a beautiful watch face, or record a video of a watch face. The default 5 secs is just too short for anything but glancing at it.

NEW: “indefinitely+” mode: the light stays on until you switch it off, but is also switched off when you lower your arm or turn the watch away from you. That way, the light will be on exactly when you need it. (Note that also in this mode, StayLit respects the individual light timeout of apps like Google Fit, Maps, or Runtastic.)

StayLit Wear: Longer Backlight - Apps on Google PlayDo you find your smartwatch's built-in backlight timeout period actually quite short? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could adjust the backlight timeout to have the screen stay on a little longer? (So that not only you, but also your friends can marvel at that new watchface you just installed...) StayLit Wear lets you adjust the time that the light stays on after the watch has been waked. You can select a value for how much time will elapse from the ...

It may not look wonderful but it will certainly be a talking point. You can pop in a Pi 3 for reasonably good computing power. The site gives a full list of components with links where to buy them. For example, the screen is just over $26 from AliExpress and the keyboard is around $8 from Amazon. The total build with the Pi is probably under $100 although the 3D printing must be factored in. Seems the spellbook cover is not factored in though

HackRF One - Probably the Rolls-Royce of Software Defined Radio (SDR) - Even Transmits and is open source hardware

HackRF One from Great Scott Gadgets is a Software Defined Radio peripheral capable of transmission or reception of radio signals from 1 MHz to 6 GHz. Designed to enable test and development of modern and next-generation radio technologies, HackRF One is an open source hardware platform that can be used as a USB peripheral or programmed for stand-alone operation.

Technically possible and many mobile phones are hardware capable. It means that it may be possible in future to be able to connect anywhere on Earth with just a plain mobile phone (and a few additional satellites of course).

The company says that most phones made in the past decade have the hardware required to connect to these satellites, but software modifications are required. This is because most phones are built around the assumption that cell towers cannot be more than 30 km (18 miles) away, since the curvature of the Earth generally prevents signals from transmitting farther than that. Once Ubiquitilink modified a phone's wireless stacks to account for the longer distance, it successfully connected to a 2G satellite in orbit.

Charles Miller, founder of Ubiquitilink, plans for the company to become a worldwide roaming operator that mobile networks will pay to access. That's a long way off, though — at least a thousand satellites are reportedly required, but the service would work with fewer in limited passes. For example, customers might not have a signal for 55 minutes, then receive service for five minutes (when the satellites pass over your location). That's certainly better than no service at all.

Ubiquitilink may allow regular phones to receive two-way signals from satellitesSatellite phones are typically bulky and expensive, since they require specialized hardware for sending communications into Earth orbit. However, it may be possible in the near future for regular smartphones to connect to telecommunications satellites, using technology demonstrated by Ubiquitilink Inc. During a briefing at Mobile World Congress in

How to Configure Acurite Weather Station with Weewx since Acurite ended their cloud support for many models at end Feb 2019

As many Acurite weather station users know, Acurite decided to discontinue their cloud service for weather stations bought in the last two or more years effective end February 2019. So this left users like myself with Acurite 5-in-1 Weather Stations and its Smarthub no longer able to upload weather data to the Acurite cloud dashboard or Weather Underground.

But necessity is the mother of invention and maybe you will be even better off with Acurite's cloud if you use an alternative like Weewx. Weewx is an alternative free and open source weather service will either read weather data as-is via a USB link from these weather stations, or if yours is like mine without a USB connector and it only has the Smarthub, it can be configured with an alternative driver to read data from the Smarthub across your local network.

The big pluses though are:* Numerous different skins to try out* Installs on a basic Raspberry Pi which will also act as a web server* Displaying to a local web server or even a remote one.* Exporting weather data not only to Weather Underground but also to Weewx server, Automatisches Wetterkarten System (AWEKAS), Citizen Weather Observer Program (CWOP), PWSweather, British Weather Observations Website (WOW)* Provides an RSS feed for your station* Connects to various other weather station brands too* Weewx is heavily customisable down to a low level if you wish, and also has 3rd party skins and extensions

WeeWX is a free, open source, software program, written in Python, which interacts with your weather station to produce graphs, reports, and HTML pages. It can optionally publish to weather sites or web servers. It uses modern software concepts, making it simple, robust, and easy to extend. It includes extensive documentation. WeeWX runs under most versions of Linux, as well as macOS, *BSD, and Solaris. Many users are running on the Raspberry Pi.

Configuring Acurite Weather Station with Weewx | GadgeteerAs many Acurite weather station users know, Acurite decided to discontinue their cloud service for weather stations bought in the last two or more years effective end February 2019. So this left users like myself with Acurite 5-in-1 Weather Stations and its Smarthub no longer able to upload weather data to the Acurite cloud dashboard or Weather Underground.